Rescue Me
by Jameson Rook
Summary: "Rescue me in the middle of my darkest hour. Time will tell, I never really had the power. Some say it's easier to give up on it, I say it's time to rescue me." WARNING: Character death. Steve centric, McDanno-implied


_** Disclaimer: Hawaii 5-0 and all of its characters belong to Peter Lenkov and CBS Studio Productions. **_

_** I love you guys so much! Thank you for all of your reviews on my last McDanno fic. I recently started watching 5-0, and kind of fell in love with the boys. THEY JUST GIVE ME SO MANY FEELS. When I become a police officer, my main goal is that I have a partner one day named Danny. I want to say 'Book 'em, Danno' just once. That is all I want! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?!**_

_** PS, my best friend and I are planning a trip to Hawaii in March. I NEED TO FIND THE CAST, AND I HOPE THEY WILL BE THERE. Scott Caan and Alex O'Loughlin are suitable 'trip keepsakes' right? I bet I could even fit Scotty in a carry-on at the airport...*cough*yeah...**_

_"Rescue me in the middle of the ocean, _

_Crashing down, it's always hard to breathe._

_Some say it's hard to make the changes,_

_Rescue me and I'll never be the same._

_Rescue me in the middle of my darkest hour._

_Time will tell, I never really had the power._

_Some say it's easier to give up on it, I say_

_It's time to rescue me."_

_"Rescue Me" Daughtry_

"_Danny_!" The scream tore from Steve's throat as soon as the bullet connected with Danny's chest. He was sprinting to close the distance between them before he could even conciously make that decision, his legs moving of their own accord. He dropped to his knees beside Danny, watching helplessly as his partner took one painful gasp of air after another. "C'mon, Danno. Stay with me, buddy." He whimpered, trying his best to conceal the fear in his voice but failing miserably. The fear and agony in Danny's blue eyes when they met his were almost his undoing. He had never seen the other man looking so..raw. So vulnerable.

"Steve..." Danny gasped, his eyes squeezing shut as tears oozed from the corners of them. His voice didn't even sound like the Danny that Steve had grown so accustomed to. "Hurts so bad." He whimpered. Steve reached out and pressed his hand over the blossoming billow of blood in the center of Danny's chest. The warm, thick blood bubbling up between his fingers was horrifying and made his stomach churn. This was his best friend...his partner...the man he was in _love_ with for God's sake, and he could feel the weak pulse under his fingers growing fainter every second.

"No, no, no!" He slapped Danny's cheek hard enough to redden the skin. "Stay with me, _please_. Open your eyes. Danny! Open your damned eyes!" He leaned down and pressed his forehead to the other man's, carding the bloodstained fingers on his free hand through the silky blonde locks as salty tears finally escaped his eyes of their own accord. He knew that, were the circumstances different, he would be on the business end of a William's-trademark rant for touching his hair.

Danny's eyes fluttered open at the sound of fear that scarred Steve's voice. He swallowed a choked sob of relief when Danny's terrified eyes finally settled back on his face. The wail of sirens filled his ears as the ambulances came closer and Steve felt a flood of tentative relief filling him. They were here. They were going to save Danny.

"St-Steve, I need you t-to," Danny swallowed painfully, wincing as he did so. "I need you to t-take care of Gracie." He stuttered around gasps for air. Steve's eyes went wide and he shook his head vigorously, refusing to accept that as a shitty version of 'last rites'.

"No. We've had this discussion. _You're _going to take care of Gracie because you're her father and she needs _you_, Danny! Not me!" He snarled through clenched teeth, unable to quell the bubble of rage that was forming in his chest. "You gotta hold on here, Danno."

That was the last word that he got in before he was being torn away from Danny as the EMTs swooped in around him. Within minutes, Danny was hooked up to various plastic tubing and was being carted into the back of an ambulance, leaving nothing but the thick, metallic scent of Danny's blood in their wake. Steve couldn't do more than just stand there, staring after him with his jaw hanging open as Chin and Kono flanked him on either side. He flinched slightly when Kono's hand landed on his shoulder blade.

"He'll be okay, brah." Chin stated, his voice as soft and zen-like as ever. The tranquility of it actually served to unnerve Steve even more, causing him to gnaw at the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

"You don't know that, Chin. You _can't_ know that. Don't make me promises that you have no business making." Steve growled, wincing at the razor sharpness of his own voice.

"Hey, Danny is too damned stubborn to let this stop him. He knows that you would have to annoy the rest of us if he didn't pull through, and he just isn't that mean. He wouldn't make us endure that." Kono added, her voice sounding as though it was tight with emotion.

He understood what they were trying to do, he really did, because this is what ohana was for. However, at that moment, the only thing he could bring himself to give half a damn about was getting to the hospital to wait for news on Danny. He mentally cursed himself for not forcing his way into the back of the ambulance to ride with him. His limbs felt numb as, what he could only assume was, shock filtered through his system.

"I need someone to drive me to the hospital. I need to be there when Danny wakes up." He muttered quietly. Kono nodded and led him to the truck with a hand between his shoulder blades. He slipped silently into the passenger's seat and stared out the window, watching the scenary pass by until they reached the hospital. He threw his door open and his feet hit the pavement before the car even came to a complete stop.

The ER waiting room that the nurse directed him to (after quite a few heated repetitions of 'he's my partner, I need to see him') was empty. Apparently Tuesday afternoons were not their busiest days. He slumped into, what could only be described as, the least comfortable chair he had ever had the misfortune of sitting in, and dropped his head into his hands to wait. The seconds seemed to slow to a near impossible rate of speed, the clock on the wall taunting him as it _tick_ed.

Seven hours later, the emergency room doors swung open and a dishevled looking man in teal scrubs and a white coat emerged. He reached up and pulled the scrub cap off of his ginger colored hair and worried it between his fingers as he stepped closer.

Kono and Chin had both joined him hours before, giving him the good news that they had bagged the guy who'd shot Danny and that he was on his way to booking to get settled in for a long stay in the Iron Bar Inn. Gracie and Rachel were there soon after Steve had gotten the balls to pick up his phone and call Rachel. They were curled against each other on one of the horrifically patterned sofas next to Steve. Grace had her head laying on Rachel's lap and she was snoring softly, blissfully unaware of the chaos around her as she slept.

"For Williams?" Steve bolted from his seat and stood stalk still in front of the surgeon, a thin line of anxious sweat clinging to his forehead and upper lip. He swallowed around his tongue, which had become glorified sandpaper, before answering.

"That's us. Is Danny..." He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. "Is he going to be alright?" The surgeon's mouth opened and closed twice before he seemed to be able to speak. Steve knew that probably had something to do with the fact that he had been sporting his 'aneurism face' since that ambulance had pulled away.

"I am so sorry." With those four words, Steve felt his heart shattering in his chest and his knees went weak. His arm shot out to brace himself on the wall, saving himself from collapsing onto the hard tile floor. He stood there for a long moment, listening to the collective tears of disbelief around him before he turned and wrapped his hands around the cold, metal arms of one of the chairs and launched it at the wall.

The plaster of the wall gave way easily under the weight of the chair, crumbling into pieces on the floor. A feral roar that tore from Steve's throat as he pushed past the doctors, ignoring their cries of 'you aren't allowed back there, sir', and bolted down the operating room hallway. He ran until he saw a mop of blonde hair peeking out from under a pale blue sheet.

He threw the doors open and strode across the room until the metal of the operating table connected with his thighs. He sucked in a ragged breath, the scent of the antiseptics burning his lungs, before throwing back the sheet. Danny was far too pale, it looked grey under the florescent lighting, and his skin was cooling when Steve twined his fingers with Danny's.

It was only when he reached out, placing his fingers into the soft flesh just under Danny's jaw and felt no thumping of a pulse under the skin, that he allowed himself to fall to his knees. Scorching tears slipped off the end of his nose as he pressed Danny's cool knuckles to his forehead, and he let out more ragged sobs than he had in years.

"Come back to me, Danno." He whispered after he'd sat there for God knows how long. The surgeon hadn't bothered to follow him into the OR, which was probably in the best interest of his health. He could practically hear Danny in his head grumbling about _'you can't beat up surgeons!'_. "I _need_ you to come back to me." The words came out as a pained whimper instead of an actual sentence. He sucked in another breath and lifted his gaze to look at Danny's blank expression. The look on his partner's face was enough to make him feel like he was getting sucked into the strongest undercurrent of his life, and the waves of agnoy were crashing over his head. "...I need you to rescue me."

But deep down, he knew that wasn't going to happen. Danny was gone. He'd lost him.

_**Woah...that went...about a million times more angsty then I had anticipated...holy hell. I apologize...this is what happens when I write at work on my overnights. Lesson learned...**_


End file.
